News Archive - 2020

The Franklin College of Arts and Sciences joins the university in welcoming the Class of 2024. More than 5,600 first-year undergraduate students who make up the UGA Class of 2024 are beginning their studies at an unprecedented time in the institution’s history. Yet like the students who came before them, they bring an extraordinary record of academic success and boundless aspiration to the birthplace of public higher education. UGA is…

Congratulations to the many Franklin College faculty, students, and alumni on awards, grants, fellowships and other recognition of scholarly activity we learned about over the summer. A sampling of recent accolades for our terrific colleagues: Lisa A. Fusillo, professor of dance in the Franklin College, has been selected by The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi—the nation’s oldest and most selective all-discipline collegiate honor…

From debunking COVID myths to explaining its real impacts on work, play and even dining, Franklin faculty have stepped up to supply expertise across numerous fields on issues throughout the media. A sample from this summer: When schools closed in 1916, some students never returned – associate professor of history Stephen Mihm at Yahoo! News Remote work is here to stay – associate professor of psychology Kristen Shockley in…

UGA Eidson Chair of American Literature LeAnne Howe (Choctaw) has coedited WHEN THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD WAS SUBDUED, OUR SONGS CAME THROUGH: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry, the first comprehensive collection of Native poetry. The collection, which gathers work from the seventeenth century to the present, representing more than 160 poets from 91 indigenous nations, is available from W. W. Norton & Company August 25…

Doctoral student uses dendrochronology—the study of tree rings—to explore the ancient environment, constructing a 5,177-year chronology of the Georgia coast, the longest in eastern North America: Kat Napora didn’t plan to study trees. The UGA grad student originally worked on shell middens, or ancient trash piles. She’d planned to continue researching them in Ireland, but a tip from a colleague led her to a site…

The University of Georgia Dual Degree Program in Engineering and German, one of the university’s signature initiatives combining Humanities and STEM disciplines, has been awarded a new grant from the Atlanta-based The Halle Foundation—named after the late Claus M. Halle, a German native who had a brilliant career with the Coca-Cola company—to support international engagement and recruitment initiatives. The grant of $280,000 will support…

The National Academy of Inventors has named two Franklin College faculty members to the 2020 class of NAI Senior Members. Richard Meagher, Distinguished Research Professor of Genetics, and Ronald Orlando, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, and chemistry, are the first UGA researchers to receive the senior membership distinction. They join a new class of 38 prolific inventors representing 24 research universities along…

New research from the University of Georgia shows significant association between proximity to dollar stores and patterns of racial segregation in major U.S. metropolitan areas. Though the patterns vary across retail chains, the research shows racial classification to be a key predictor of store location. The new research by Jerry Shannon, associate professor of geography in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, was published August 27…

Plant Biology Doctoral Student Jacqueline Joye Peña and her advisor Assistant Professor Douda Bensasson received the Gilliam Graduate Fellowship Grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The award provides Peña the opportunity to travel to important scientific conferences and meetings in her field, professional development workshops, and a competitive stipend in addition to allowance for diversity and inclusion activities at the…

From teaching paddleboarding on Lake Herrick to leading trips through the Outdoor Recreation Center, Franklin double-major Alec Murphy (biology/psychology, Spanish minor) is committed to improving the lives of people around him. A future physician, he hopes to incorporate positive psychology research with medicine to make others happier and healthier: I volunteered at St. Mary’s Hospital in radiology and neurology departments and the wound…